Full Transcript
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98t17xz3YxI
[00:00] So,
[00:02] So, what's cooking?
[00:03] what's cooking?
[00:05] It's been a few months since the release of one battle after another, and it feels like the discourse around the film has been never ending.
[00:11] When the first critical reactions came out praising the film as Paul Thomas Anderson at his best, and one of the defining films of the decade, I knew that we were in store for something special.
[00:20] When I left the IMAX screening after sitting with this nearly 3-hour long adventure, that feeling was validated.
[00:27] It reminded me of what's great about going to the movies.
[00:31] For 2 hours and 43 minutes, a bunch of strangers sat in a dark room staring at a big screen, completely engrossed by this relentless story.
[00:39] When Willa let out her cathartic scream at the end of the film, I felt the same way.
[00:43] It was hard not to feel energized and amazed after experiencing the storytelling capabilities of one of our greatest living directors.
[00:52] Yet, as I was watching the film, I just couldn't help shake the feeling that this was going to be a real conversation stirer.
[00:58] Despite the initial overwhelming praise, this has very much
[01:00] overwhelming praise, this has very much proven to be the case.
[01:02] In the months since the release, the film has gone through various cycles of discourse about PTA, about revolutionary movements, and the political potential of cinema.
[01:13] But most recently, Tiana Taylor's best supporting actress win at the Golden Globes added fuel to the debate over whether one battle after another is radical enough.
[01:22] It's another example of a growing trend wherein audiences assign political labels to films apart from what appears on screen or what the director intended.
[01:30] Viewers seem increasingly hungry for a clear, prescriptive political message and judge the film by that standard.
[01:39] For the past few years, we've existed in a culture where media choices have become many people's primary form of political expression.
[01:48] In a culture where people feel more alienated from political power, it makes sense that one of our only ways of engaging with the outside world, consumerism, has become such a meaningful factor.
[01:59] Deciding what to watch or support has become a way to
[02:01] watch or support has become a way to signal values, belong [music] to signal values, belong [music] to communities, and feel something amongst a messy political climate.
[02:07] When consumption serves as a primary means of participation, of course, there comes with it a moral weight.
[02:13] I think this is partly why debates around art have become so intensified on the [music] internet because the art gets lost in the political meanings that people attach to it.
[02:23] But the thing is, as [music] much as consumerism wants to confine us to this reality, we should reject it.
[02:29] Films are never just [music] one thing.
[02:31] Some of our greatest works of art in all mediums conjure the voices of complicated [music] characters because human beings ourselves are multifaceted.
[02:41] This is what great art is often able to do.
[02:44] It's meant to make us think and discuss.
[02:46] Art has always been a tremendously effective way to explore political ideas.
[02:50] And the battle of Alers, which the film explicitly references, stands as a clear example of that [music] power.
[02:56] Audiences pulling political meaning from movies isn't just valid.
[02:58] It's part of how art functions.
[03:01] It's part of how art functions.
[03:03] Lately though, that impulse has drifted towards more narrow readings,
[03:05] turning complex works into litmus tests and placing expectations on films they were never trying to meet.
[03:10] As a result, a portion of the online discourse around this movie has fixated on which strand of left politics Paul Thomas Anderson is supposedly aligning himself with.
[03:21] That framing, I think, sidesteps what the film is actually doing.
[03:26] One battle approaches its characters with generosity.
[03:28] Rather than staking out an ideological position, the film is invested in sustaining a sense of hope by reminding us that this struggle is collective, ongoing, and bigger than any single moment.
[03:42] Trilo, we've been laid siege for hundreds of years.
[03:45] You did nothing wrong.
[03:47] One battle after another keeps returning to a value that feels increasingly absent in contemporary western life, collectivism.
[03:54] Again and again, the film shows ordinary people stepping in to support the protagonist, not for personal gain or recognition, but
[04:02] personal gain or recognition, but because they believe in acting for something larger than themselves.
[04:06] These exchanges are often facilitated through the character of Sergio St. Carlos, played by the almost always excellent Benio Del Toro.
[04:16] The key to understanding the importance of Sensei is that he is the most connected character in the whole film.
[04:22] He's deeply connected to his culture, his family, and within his community.
[04:27] Sergio is in the film for a total of 13 minutes and 11 seconds, or 8% of the total run time.
[04:32] And in that 8%, we zip from his martial arts studio to his apartment complex to a nearby church.
[04:40] As Bob is fumbling around trying to plug in his phone, [music] Sensei remains calm, coordinates with skateboarders, and takes the time to calmly introduce by name each person living in his household to Bob.
[04:51] As the feds locate the apartment and ramp up their invasion, Sensei and his wife promptly work to help mothers and children into a secret tunnel to get them out of dodge.
[05:02] And Sensei does so without breaking a single sweat.
[05:04] without breaking a single sweat.
[05:06] Out of the many scenes in one battle, it's the one that moved me the most emotionally.
[05:09] In this smooth display of what Sensei calls a Latino Harriet Tubman situation, he embodies one of the core ideas of one battle after another.
[05:16] That the struggle is ongoing and that reality gives us a responsibility to prepare the next generation to carry things further and do better than what we did.
[05:28] I don't think it's a coincidence that Willa is literally taught how to fight by sensei.
[05:33] That lesson symbolically isn't just about martial arts.
[05:36] It's about learning how to respond when the world around you starts closing in.
[05:40] As authoritarianism gains ground, people around us are reacting in radically different ways.
[05:45] Some people are finding their release and engaging with media and debates online.
[05:47] Others are taking to the streets to protest.
[05:53] Others feel paralyzed by the reality of the situation.
[05:56] It's hard not to feel the latter when doom scrolling through social media images of another atrocity or a pending uptick in
[06:04] atrocity or a pending uptick in political violence.
[06:07] The mix of rage, grief, and panic in reaction to this reality is displayed by Bob, someone who wants the world to change, but has experienced such personal loss that he's resigned himself to the couch.
[06:19] By the time the action is at his front door, he doesn't know what to do or where to go.
[06:23] This is what makes the image of Sensei methodically moving his vulnerable community to safety while also grounding and readying Bob land so impactfully.
[06:33] Faced with the prospect of violence, he doesn't spiral into panic or self-interest.
[06:39] What we're watching instead is collectivism in action.
[06:43] People taking care of one another because they've already done the work to be ready.
[06:47] The moment feels earned, even reassuring, as if the film is telling us that this is exactly what all [music] of these people have been preparing for.
[06:56] Sensei's quieter, more patient collectivism is often contrasted with the French 75's violent radicalism.
[07:01] But reading that contrast as PTA condemning the 75 misses
[07:07] contrast as PTA condemning the 75 misses the point.
[07:09] It's easy to interpret their so-called failings as a moral judgment.
[07:14] Yet, if the film were truly denouncing them, it wouldn't make sense for Sensei to hold any genuine admiration [music] for the group at all.
[07:21] A lot of the discourse around the crumbling of the French 75 was that it was of their own doing or that they didn't matter or that they were performative when most of their members end up dead in jail or resigned to the couch.
[07:33] How could you not think that?
[07:35] But movements are not defined by their immediate successes or the outcomes of their members.
[07:41] It's noteworthy that the Christmas Adventurers Club [music] positioned as an all powerful force that operates above any power structure [music] specifically mentioned that Howard Somerville of the French 75 established the sanctuary city of Backton Cross and is operating an underground railroad to send [music] immigrants there.
[08:01] Because of their radical actions and the visibility that came with them, the French 75 helped create the conditions that make sense collective action
[08:08] that make sense collective action possible.
[08:11] That's why readings that frame PTA as writing them off entirely don't really track for me.
[08:15] The film still makes space for capable members like Howard and Deandra who remain active long after the setback 16 years earlier.
[08:25] Back to Cross itself is rooted in the French 75's origins which means everything that operates inside that city can in some way trace itself back to their influence and groundwork.
[08:37] The fact that the French 75 buckle under the weight of state pressure doesn't negate the urgency or value of their earlier direct action.
[08:46] The film isn't interested in constructing a moral hierarchy between modes of resistance.
[08:51] Instead, it asks what anger can realistically achieve when the state is equally invested in violence and whether the kind of community building Sensei models on a small scale is precisely what's missing at a larger societal level.
[09:05] Sensei steps in with a version of revolution that lives in the slow, unglamorous work of sustaining a
[09:10] unglamorous work of sustaining a community, building connections with those around you so that when the worst case scenario occurs, you're prepared.
[09:19] It functions as a long-term strategy, not a flashy one.
[09:21] And somehow PTA manages to wrap that patient vision of resistance inside an incredibly entertaining action comedy.
[09:29] I want you to think again to the ending of the battle of Alers if you've seen it.
[09:33] The film makes a pointed distinction between winning a battle and winning anything that actually matters.
[09:39] The French military may succeed in crushing the insurgency in Alers and eliminating its leadership.
[09:46] Yet, despite that victory, Algeria still moves toward independence and France's grip on its colonial project weakens beyond repair.
[09:55] Director Gilo Pontikorvo drives this home in the epilogue, shifting away from military operations and toward the sheer force of popular will.
[10:02] We see enormous crowds filling the streets demanding self-determination.
[10:07] In that final movement, the film leaves no
[10:11] final movement, the film leaves no ambiguity.
[10:13] Tanks and checkpoints can impose control for a time, but they can't decide who a country belongs to.
[10:18] Algeria unmistakably belongs to the Algerians.
[10:21] One battle after another is profoundly hopeful in the same way that the battle of Alers is.
[10:25] While the French 75 may have been largely eradicated with the fates of Sensei and Deandra left up in the air, it chooses to end with Perfidia's letter to Willa, which tells her that maybe her generation will be the one to put the world right and carry on the fight that she started.
[10:41] In the same way that the Algerian resistance aren't able to destroy French colonialism by themselves, nobody in one battle destroys capitalism or the Christmas adventurers.
[10:54] The struggle must and will continue through the next generation through Willa, through Sergio and the young skaters who work alongside him, through the young kids who convey Howard Somerville's messages out to a wider network.
[11:09] The film denies us the [music] simple pleasure of victory belonging to
[11:11] simple pleasure of victory belonging to a single moment or group.
[11:13] It's carried a single moment or group.
[11:16] It's carried forward by the people who come after, by those who absorb the lessons and adapt them to their moment.
[11:17] That sense of continuity is one of the film's most beautiful messages.
[11:20] Instead of wallowing in despair or treating resistance as a doomed gesture,
[11:25] it insists on persistence in a cultural moment saturated with cynical defeist responses to the rise of fascism.
[11:36] The film offers something sturdier, a belief that struggle survives by being shared, taught, and passed on to the next generation.
[11:45] I'm not one to believe that cinema is revolutionary in the modern Hollywood landscape.
[11:49] And I don't think it's reasonable to place that expectation on western cinema.
[11:54] I don't expect this film to suddenly push viewers into organizing or direct action because what film can really achieve that on its own merits?
[12:02] At the end of the day, we're all just trying to make it till tomorrow.
[12:06] We see politicians continuing to ignore publiclybacked ideas that would benefit the many instead of the few.
[12:10] We see violence
[12:12] instead of the few.
[12:15] We see violence enacted upon innocent people.
[12:15] And we enacted upon innocent people.
[12:17] And we experience constant efforts to divide us from one another.
[12:20] One battle is not the antidote to that reality.
[12:22] But I do think if there's anything to take from it
[12:24] if there's anything to take from it beyond an appreciation of the craftsmanship,
[12:26] it's that building those connections with the people around you
[12:28] is more valuable than ever.
[12:30] No matter how bleak things may feel, the future always offers a promise that [music] things can get better.
[12:32] That idea crystallizes in Willa's final scene.
[12:34] She draws on what she's inherited from Perfidia and Bob, the practical and emotional lessons passed down by Sensei and Deandra, and her own growing sense of agency.
[12:36] In doing so, she understands that she belongs to [music] something larger, a living tradition shaped by resistance.
[12:38] At our current moment, a character who first appears with a song that says, "I don't want to do your dirty work [music] and departs ready to fight as a true American girl feels poignant.
[12:41] For all the feverish takes that judge the film and PTA by political standards that no film can live up to,
[13:15] standards that no film can live up to, we're left with a muchneeded reminder of hope in the face of overwhelming odds.
[13:20] hope in the face of overwhelming odds.
[13:21] Willis stands in for the next generation, handed the fragments of what came before and tasked with pushing them forward.
[13:28] Even when the road ahead of her grows steep, history has a way of mixing cruelty and courage in constant company.
[13:35] Each generation inherents that tension and aims to leave the world a little bit better.
[13:39] Movements and structures will change.
[13:41] The enemies will evolve, but the work continues one battle after another.
[13:47] Thank you for watching.
[13:49] I'll be honest, it's been a little frustrating watching the discourse around one battle after another drift further and further away from what I think is the film's emotional core.
[13:58] My hope with this video was to slow things down and make a case for why that heart still matters.
[14:02] If this perspective resonated with you, liking the video really helps it reach more people, and subscribing means you won't miss future video essays like this.
[14:11] And if you see the film differently, I'd genuinely love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.